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Financial pressures intensify throughout the healthcare industry. Consider the business of manufacturing medical equipment, such as patient monitoring devices and anesthesia machines, and selling them to hospitals for use in operating room surgical procedures...

You just might want to pay attention to the latest health insurance jargon. It could mean thousands of dollars out of your pocket. The Obama administration has given the go-ahead for a new cost-control strategy called "reference pricing." It lets insurers and employers put a dollar limit on what health plans pay for some expensive procedures, such as knee and hip replacements...

The first thing Michelle Pool did before picking a plan under President Barack Obama's health insurance law was check whether her longtime primary care doctor was covered. Pool, a 60-year-old diabetic who has had back surgery and a hip replacement, purchased the plan only to find that the insurer was mistaken...

The power couple of sports is a rehab unit all its own. Lindsey Vonn and Tiger Woods, however, can take heart in knowing they have each other to lean on during the arduous process. Vonn is working her way back from a second right knee operation that kept her from skiing at the Sochi Olympics. Woods is recovering from surgery to relieve pain from a pinched nerve in his back...

May 13, 2014 10:06 am |
by University of Michigan Health System |
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Surgery patients covered by Medicaid come into their operations with worse health, do worse afterward, stay in the hospital longer and find themselves back in the hospital more often than those covered by private insurance, a new analysis by University of Michigan Medical School researchers finds...

Mark Matulaitis holds out his arms so the Parkinson's specialist can check his tremors. But this is no doctor's office: Matulaitis sits in his rural Maryland home as a neurologist a few hundred miles away examines him via the camera in his laptop. Welcome to the virtual house call, the latest twist on telemedicine...

The Department of Health and Human Services announced that new preliminary data show an overall nine percent decrease in hospital-acquired conditions nationally during 2011 and 2012. National reductions in adverse drug events, falls, infections, and other forms of hospital-induced harm are estimated to have prevented nearly 15,000 deaths in hospitals...

Scientists implanted thin sheets of scaffolding-like material from pigs into a few young men with disabling leg injuries — and say the experimental treatment coaxed the men's own stem cells to regrow new muscle. The research, funded by the Defense Department, included just five patients, a small first step in the complex quest for regenerative medicine...

Hospitals can enjoy better analytics, improved mobility, and solutions that tackle specific areas of the surgical continuum. The only question is whether a particular facility is ready to leverage the benefits of OR management technology to address operational needs and wants...

Makers of trouble-prone implants used to surgically repair women's pelvic problems would be subject to stricter safety requirements under a federal proposal issued Tuesday. The Food and Drug Administration says plastic mesh used to repair pelvic collapse should be reclassified as a "high-risk" medical device, following years of reports of pain, bleeding, and infection among women who have received the implants...

The hunt for a health plan that would cover a particular drug or a favorite doctor proved particularly frustrating for many consumers navigating the new insurance exchanges under the federal government's healthcare overhaul, according to a report released Monday...

A new approach has emerged that marks the target area with greater, reproducible accuracy and it appears to have other advantages for post-operative radiotherapy as well. This approach uses a new medical device that is placed by a surgeon when tissue is removed. The surgically implantable, spiral incorporates six permanent titanium clips that are "suspended" in a fixed three-dimensional arrangement that can clearly be identified...

Are you looking to renovate an operating room at your facility? Are you not sure where to start, or do you have some concerns about either the process or the end results of a renovation effort? Brett Estabrook, Director of Design & Development, BERCHTOLD Corporation, answered a handful of questions about OR renovation during a recent conversation with Surgical Products...